


Searching for Clint

by respoftw



Series: Tumblr Prompts - Hawksilver edition [31]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Happy Ending, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pietro POV, Worried Pietro, hints of past Clint/Coulson, vague mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>obsessive-enthusiast said:<br/>:D I was wondering if I could throw this prompt back to you, because it's been festering in my mind for a while! How about during a mission to raid a HYDRA base or something, something goes wrong and Clint ends up injured and taken captive by hydra for torture/experiments, just like the twins were. They only realize Clint's gone when they get back to the quinjet- que agonizing waiting trying to find him, and Pietro being the one to find him during the rescue mission, and worrying over everything</p>
            </blockquote>





	Searching for Clint

“Where's Clint?”

 

Pietro's question is met with silence as his teammates do their best to avoid his gaze. The latest mission, a should-have-been-routine raid on another damn HYDRA base had gone to shit. That old saying about cutting off one head and another growing in its place was proving to be infuriatingly true.

 

The last thing he remembers is crowing to an exasperated Hawkeye about his fiftieth take down before those familiar blue eyes had widened in panic and the world had suddenly went black.

 

Then he was waking up on the Quinjet, presumably heading back to Avengers HQ. The first thing he had done was look for Wanda (unharmed but sitting far too close to Vision), closely followed by a check on Clint. Who was nowhere to be seen.

 

“Where is he?!” he asks again, voice staring to rise in anger. _Something's wrong_ , he thinks. What don't they want to tell him?

 

Natasha's face is grim as she answers with the words that punch a hole in his belly. “HYDRA have him.”

 

Pietro's vision starts to blur, his ears ringing as if from a blast. _This can't be happening. Not HYDRA. Not Clint. He can't...Clint can't..._ he _knows_ what HYDRA are capable of and that _can't_ happen to Clint.

 

Black spots start to swim in front of his eyes and he realises that he can't breathe. This is _not_ the time for a panic attack, he curses at himself. _Oh God, who knows what horrors Clint has already been subjected to?_ He needs to pull himself together. They need to start looking for him. They have to help him. They....

 

He surfaces back to consciousness to find himself in the medical wing back at the mansion. He doesn't even have the comfort of forgetting the situation for a moment, the instant he wakes up his first thought is of Clint.

 

He's out the hospital bed and halfway to the exit, heart racing, before Steve is holding him back.

 

“Pietro, breathe!”

 

He slams Steve into the wall, suddenly filled with anger. “Have you found him?” he growls. The look in Steve's eyes is all the answer he needs. “Then you need to let me go!” He releases his hold and starts to walk away.

 

“Quicksilver.” It's not Steve, but Captain America's voice that barks out his codename, causing him to heed on instinct. As Pietro glares at him for pulling rank, his voice softens. “Pietro”, he pleads. “We're looking. We're all on it, SHIELD is on it. We'll find him. We'll bring him back.”

 

“I can help.” His voice sounds weak and broken and he hates being this vulnerable in front of the man he's come to respect and admire but....it's Clint. “Please.”

 

Steve's hand on his shoulder is warm and comforting. “As soon as we have a location, I'll let you know.”

 

Pietro nods. He knows it's the best Steve can offer him. Until they know where Clint is, he's useless. It's the worst feeling in the world.

 

Even before the enhanced speed was “gifted” to him by HYDRA, he had hated waiting. He's always preferred action, rushing into things head first, worrying about the consequences later, but there's nothing he can do to help Clint.

 

Wanda tries to access Clint's mind, hoping to get a location from his thoughts, her powers already developed to the point that she can find those familiar to her over great distances. She succeeds just once in making contact but whatever she saw gave them no clues on where he was. She refuses to give Pietro details on what she saw, but Pietro had been there as she made contact and he knows it isn't good.

 

“He is alive, brother.” she had promised. He clings to that statement, wishing it gave him more comfort. If there's anything the Maximoff twins know about HYDRA's methods, it's that sometimes being alive is not the best outcome.

 

It's been eight days.

 

Eight days of futile searching. Eight days of misery and untold amounts of pain for Clint.

 

The key to their search comes from a middle-aged man in a suit. The rest of the Avengers had caused a commotion when the saw him, talking over each other, raised voices spilling across the room until Wanda had shut them all up with her powers. Whatever this was, it could wait.

 

“Where is he?” Pietro had pleaded.

 

The man, Director Coulson, had offered him an understanding smile. “Look after him”, he'd said before handing Pietro the co-ordinates that were more precious to him than gold.

 

They were going to bring him home.

 

The HYDRA facility the co-ordinates led to should have been dank and dreary to match the atrocities that the organisation commit but the cheerful yellow walls belie it all. Not that Pietro notices the surroundings, not now that he's finally able to act.

 

They've barely touched down before he's bursting through the building, taking down anyone that gets his way without a thought. All he can concentrate on is getting to Clint.

 

As cheery as the décor is, the room that he finds Clint in is still a cell. The computer virus that Vision had uploaded to the servers allows him easy access through the door.

 

The only positive thought in his mind as he sees Clint is that the man is still breathing. He forces himself not to linger on the obvious signs of abuse and what, exactly, they mean. There will be time to think of that later, once he's got Clint away from this place, away from these people. Once Clint is home.

 

The mad dash back to the Quinjet is a blur. He tries to block the sobs of fear from Wanda as she sees the signs of what has been done to Clint.

 

“Pietro!” she cries in distress, “The experiments. They...Clint...”

 

He shushes her gently, pulling her into a hug once Clint is safely stowed in the jet, Bruce already hooking him up to wires and machines. “I know, Wanda. I know.”

 

“No-one else survived them, Pietro. Only us.”

 

He knows the others have heard, that they've realised that Clint had been put through the same experiments that he and Wanda had endures. They don't know much about the specifics but they know enough to to realise how slim Clint's chances are, he can see it in their eyes.

 

Pietro's words are for all of them. “It is a good thing that he is an honorary Maximoff then, isn't it? We do not fall so easily.”

 

Eight days of worry over not knowing where Clint was are followed by  _seventeen_ days of waiting for him to wake up. Pietro sits in a chair by Clint's bed, only moving when the buzzing need to burn off his energy forces him.

 

Clint  _will_ wake up. They just don't know what will have changed when he does. Dr Cho can't be sure, but it stands to reason that the experiments must have succeeded. Every breath Clint takes is living proof that he hadn't ended up like all the others.

 

He hopes that Clint gets something good. Something easy to control. He doesn't want Clint to go through the Hell he went through while trying to adjust to the speed. No matter what, though, he'll be there by his side.

 

“Even if you grow an extra head,” Pietro mutters to himself during his late night vigil.

 

“Nah...wouldn't want you to get jealous. The head I've got is already prettier than yours, two would just be greedy.”

 

Pietro doesn't have time to react before doctors and nurses are shoving him out of the way as they rush to check on the suddenly awake patient. As he stands watching Clint wave them off, tears of joy in his eyes, he doesn't even care. Clint is finally awake. Nothing can bother him tonight.

 

*

 

Clint gets a clean bill of health. What's more, no changes brought on by the HYDRA experiments ever surface. He doesn't talk to the others about what was done to him. Only Wanda and Pietro are let in, Clint breaking down as he realised that the twins, these two ridiculously noble and brave kids, had been through every bit of pain and terror that he had.

 

He can't bear that thought. Wanda is like a daughter to him and Pietro....well, his feelings for Pietro are far less familial. They're the ones who pull him through the worst of it, who're there for him when the nightmares leave him screaming for mercy.

 

He's there for them too, another body to share the load, willing to shake them awake when the cries begin.

 

It's after one of Pietro's nightmares, as the two men lie tangled in Clint's bed, Clint unable to sleep alone anymore, that the kid asks him if he ever wished that the experiments  _had_ changed him. “At least Wanda and I have something to show for all the pain. It doesn't make it worth it but...”

 

Clint's heart breaks all over again as he thinks about what they've been through. He pushes the pain aside, they shouldn't be dwelling on the past. It's time to start looking forward.

 

“Actually,” he begins seriously. “I've kept this to myself but...I think I do have a superpower now.”

 

Pietro gasps, hands frantically groping Clint's body for wings or horns or god-knows-what-else.

 

“Yeah”, Clint continues. “The power to not only put up with your annoying ass, but to actually kind of love it.”

 

Pietro's searching hands slap his chest in a huff of relief.

 

“You are horrible and I hate you.”

 

“No, you don't.”

 

“No...I don't.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://pietrolovesclint.tumblr.com/)


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